Mom

I write this from the deck of a lovely Colorado mountain home. I am gazing at a rustic wooden foot bridge a few yards away. The bridge spans a gin-clear creek filled with native brown and the occasional rainbow and brook trout. The noisy little creek spills down the mountain through the hay meadows of the ranching valley below and empties into a larger stream that eventually joins the mighty Gunnison River.

On the far side of the bridge is the cabin of my older brother, Marc. On the handrail in the center of the bridge is affixed a small brass plaque. The inscription on the plaque reads, “Margie’s Crossing.”

Each time I look at the bridge that connects our properties in this place where we and our siblings have known so much joy, the same thought occurs to me: Mom would have loved this. Indeed, in a very real sense Mom was the bridge that connected our family and kept us together through good times and bad.

Margie Mae Norman was born to John Wesley and Elsie Mae (Beamgard) Norman in Scott City, Kansas, on April 12, 1923. She was preceded by her older sister, Jeanie, and followed by her younger sister, Claire. Growing up the three were inseparable and they remained close their entire lives.

Margie was a child of the Depression and the Dust Bowl, both of which decimated Western Kansas. I grew up hearing stories of both from her and my grandparents. The dust was everywhere and got into everything. She told stories of lifting her head off her pillow in the morning only to discover a perfect reverse silhouette of her head.

I believe it was also Margie who was taken to the town doctor for an earache only to discover that a kernel of corn had actually sprouted in her ear. I keep a copy of Dorothea Lange’s iconic 1936 “Migrant Mother” photo above my desk to remind me where I’m from and how bad things can really get. It keeps me humble about the hardships I have endured and more than a little cautious about the world and what we can expect from it.

By all accounts, Margie was a bright, active, good natured child who seemed to find interest in everything and goodness in everyone. That may be the best explanation for how and why she fell in love with, and eventually married, Melvin J. (aka, Mickey) Rupp, as their personalities would seem to have been polar opposites.

I think Dad may have represented a reckless spirit of freedom that Mom had always yearned for, even as a young girl. Certainly, their early married life reflected a decidedly counterculture attitude as they raised their growing family from a tiny two-room cabin (sans running water) while managing the beach house and concessions for what is now known as Lake Scott State Park. It was post WW-II and they were the original hippies, living off the grid even before the grid existed, per se. I think both of them would agree that it was the happiest time in their adult lives.

Eventually, of course, reality had to intercede and that reality came in the form of their fourth child, yours truly. With my birth it finally became clear that their idyllic little commune was no longer sustainable. They would have to give up their bohemian lifestyle, move to the big city, and live the boring, cookie-cutter lives of normal people.

For Mom it meant being two doors down from her sister, Jeanie, with her parents just another block up College Street. For Mom it meant a support system. For us kids it meant indoor plumbing (no more going in a pail in the corner of the cabin or walking “up the hill” to the His and Hers outhouses). It also meant a block full of other kids to play with and/or torment, as the mood struck us.

For Dad, however, the move meant capitulation. He was forced to conform to all the conventional social norms and expectations he despised. And although he tried to play the part for a dozen years or so, I don’t think he ever really bought in to the whole scene.

While my memories are almost certainly clouded with nostalgia, I recall that on holidays our extended family could have been mistaken for the subjects of a Norman Rockwell painting. I have warm memories of Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas mornings that I will always treasure and for which I will forever be grateful.

I feel confident that my memory of Mom is similar to that of each of my siblings; a loving, thoughtful, attentive, warm, witty and endlessly patient woman who made each of her children feel special. Indeed, growing up each of us felt that we had a special relationship with Mom and, apparently, each of us did. That was her magic.

A cursory glance at a photo of her as a young woman is enough to confirm that she was objectively pretty; dark hair, almond-shaped brown eyes, full lips, classic nose and a warm, mischievous smile. But beyond pretty, there was an inner beauty that everyone who knew her recognized. I adored her, and thought she was the most beautiful woman alive.

In a word, Mom was good, and she will always be my role model for the person I aspire to be, just as Dad serves in many respects (albeit not all) as a model for the person I seek to avoid . . . often with limited success on both counts, unfortunately.  

Mom was smart and intuitive, but there was a naiveté about her that was both charming and sometimes frustrating. I recall coming home one night in high school after an evening of dragging Main and drinking beer with my buddies. As soon as I came in the door Mom smelled – or somehow sensed – what I’d been up to. My excuse was that in a small town there is really very little else to do, which was absolutely true.

Mom used this as an opportunity to tell me how she and Dad had entertained themselves when they were young. It began as you would expect; a young couple engaged in wholesome, but mind-numbingly boring activities. But by the time she was done, the story included Dad driving his Model A Ford coupe down Main Street backwards to see how fast he could go and the two of them being chased through wheat fields at night and actually shot at by the town’s Barney Fife (who was soon to be terminated for it).

When she finally finished I was dumbfounded. “But Mom, what’s the moral of your story?  You could have been killed!” 

“Yes,” she replied, “but we weren’t drinking.” That was Mom.

While the date is fuzzy in my mind, around 1976 Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a radical mastectomy. I seem to recall it was on the right side as she showed me the gruesome results once but I was concentrating so hard on not blanching that I remember very little else.

At the time, I was recently married and completely absorbed in pharmacy school. But that’s no excuse. To this day I deeply regret not being more engaged and encouraging as she dealt with what I now appreciate was a deeply traumatic event. At any rate, apart from the disfiguring scars – both physical and emotional – after the surgery she appeared to be cancer free and the long-term prognosis seemed to be good. She, and we, put it out of our minds.

Beginning sometime in 1980, Mom began suffering a nagging aching pain in her left shoulder. She mentioned it from time to time in our phone calls and letters asking my pharmaceutical advice, but I never thought much about it. After obtaining no relief from the physicians in Scott City, and unknown to me, she abandoned conventional care (or did it abandon her?) and self-referred to a chiropractor in town. As a result, precious months were lost.

In early March of 1981, Mom awoke at home to discover she could not move her legs. She was rushed to a Denver hospital where it was quickly determined that her chronic shoulder pain was actually the result of a slowly growing secondary tumor from the original “cured” breast cancer that was impinging on her spinal cord. Unfortunately, by the time the connection was made and radiation had begun to shrink the tumor, irreparable damage had been done and we were informed that it was unlikely she would walk again.

I recall visiting Mom in the hospital in Denver from our home in Gallup where I worked as a newly commissioned pharmacy officer in the Indian Health Service. During our visit she was cheerful and optimistic that she was going to “just get up and walk out of here.” I left feeling better about the immediate future, but worried about how Dad could care for her at home and what accommodations would have to be made to the house. As it turned out, like many things we worry about in life, those would not be problems.

Shortly after noon on April 1, 1981, I was home for lunch when the phone rang. It was Marc, and he got straight to the point: “Mike, Mom died this morning.” I still recall my initial reaction as I thought “this is the worst April Fool’s joke, EVER!

But it was no joke. Having been bedridden in the hospital (and apparently not anticoagulated) for weeks, Mom had thrown a pulmonary embolism during one of Marc’s visits and died within a few minutes. Was it a good death? I don’t know, but I have thought about that a lot in the years since. I hope so.

The funeral in Scott City was an opportunity for the Magnificent 7 – Michelle, Marc, Margo, Michael, Mitchell, Mari and Marja (yes, Margie and Mickey were into alliteration) – to demonstrate for the first time that we were capable of pulling together without Mom. I am proud to say that we did, and for the most part have continued to do so ever since. I am also proud of, and grateful to, the many people who attended the funeral and accompanied us to the cemetery to lay her to rest. I had participated in many funerals as an altar boy at St. Joseph’s church and I can honestly say that Mom’s was better attended than any of them. The cars stretched for blocks and blocks. Everyone loved her and everyone felt the loss.

Back at the house afterward, one of my sisters confronted me with a question, “Michael (Mom always insisted that everyone call me by my given name), I haven’t seen you cry once through this whole thing. What’s your deal?”

Struggling for a response, both to her and myself, I just said what I felt. Despite her relative youth (I am now ten year older than Mom when she died, and I’m young!), Mom had lived a life in full. She had raised 7 children which were her joy. She had the opportunity to see and/or speak to them prior to her death, and she had a deep and abiding faith that she would see all of them again one day.

I am not suggesting Mom wanted to die, she enjoyed life. But I don’t think she was afraid of death. I think she felt she had accomplished what she was put on earth to do. She didn’t suffer the angst of things left unsaid or undone that haunt most people toward the end of their lives. There were no loose ends to tie up. No what ifs. No couldas, or wouldas, or shouldas. I think she had crossed her own personal finish line in life and she was satisfied with the result.

Beyond that, there is something else that put me at ease. The fact is, I felt then and still feel now that I never really lost Mom. She remains a part of me and not just in the technical biological sense, but in the psychological, emotional and philosophical sense as well. If you have read my other essays you know I am not one to indulge in superstitious or supernatural thinking. That said, there is an inexplicable connection that I still feel to my mother. I feel her presence in me.

How? I don’t know, but that’s why I didn’t cry. I simply never felt that I lost Mom. It’s really impossible to explain any better than that. I carry Mom in me every day of my life. I always have and I always will.

Since Mom died I have enjoyed accomplishments and achievements that she was not able to witness, including perhaps most importantly the birth and growth of my own two daughters. In passing, my siblings have occasionally said things like “it’s too bad Mom wasn’t here to see this.”

While I understand and appreciate the sentiment, I know that Mom always had complete confidence that I would achieve whatever I set my mind to, and I think she felt the same for each of my brothers and sisters. I think she fondly imagined all of our triumphs in life and probably more on top of those.

That’s how I feel with my own children. I know their potential, and have imagined the great things they will do and the wonderful experiences they will have in their lives.

I hope they remember this when, at some point in the future one of them says, “I wish Dad were here to see this.” To her I would say, “Look inside yourself, I am.”

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